Ghillie Suits

Posted bymalcolmsmusingscomPosted inUncategorized

My friend Jill was talking about a ‘Ghillie Suit’. I confessed ignorance and googled it. Wikipedia says:

‘A ghillie suit is a type of camouflage clothing designed to resemble the background environment – such as foliage, snow or sand. Typically, it is a net or cloth garment covered in loose strips of burlap (hessian), cloth, or twine, sometimes made to look like leaves and twigs, and optionally augmented with scraps of foliage from the area.’

Last night a group of us met, friends from church. We talked about Jesus as ‘The Way’, walking with us along The Way, encouraging us, guiding us… the reality of Jesus in our lives, prayers and experience.

We also talked about the places where God’s presence isn’t so clear – Ukraine, Gaza, parts of British and US politics – as well as personal and family situations.

…Reading about T.B. Joshua, one of Nigeria’s most controversial megachurch leaders. More than two years after his death he’s accused of secretly abusing and raping young women.

Dozens of survivors have revealed that Joshua was no godly prophet; he rained “Hell” upon his victims inside the living compound that adjoins his church in Lagos, Nigeria…

Where was God in that?

Uncle Tom has been sold as a slave to the cruel, violent Lagree. Tom believed that his God was everywhere; a slave woman says: ‘I know de Lord an’t here.’

Tom asks: ‘Is God HERE?. Ah how is it possible for the untaught heart to keep its faith, unswerving, in the face of dire misrule, and palpable, unrebuked injustice? In that simple heart waged a fierce conflict: the crushing sense of wrong, the foreshadowing of a whole life of future misery, the wreck of all past hopes…’

Perhaps when God seems absent  he’s there in His ghillie suit, blending into the surroundings, concealing himself. He’s very close, but just can’t be seen.

In a dream Tom hears: ‘When thou passest through the waters I will be with you…’ His ghillie-suited God is there with him.

7 thoughts on “Ghillie Suits”

  1. It is hard to understand, from a human perspective, and ever-present God who wishes us to know him in a personal way on his terms (through the cross) and not ours. We wish him to be more like a genie or Santa clause for our situation. He would have us know and follow him through it all. Faith is all or nothing and half faith is a bird with one wing.

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  2. Malcolm, my youngest son was so excited with I bought him his ghillie suit for hunting years ago. I enjoy how you parallel so many thoughts in your post.
    I watched an older documentary on Holocaust survivors last night. One survivor (5 were interviewed~called “The Last Days”) mentioned when she stopped talking to God. It was after two little children had fallen off the back of the truck and then a horrendous act. It was 50 years later she talked to God again and acknowledged she wouldn’t be there without him. I’m so glad he’s not camouflaged to me! He gives me free will, the power to choose, …I’ve made some bad choices. I feel and see him now and pray others see him in me.

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    1. I was interested too, Karla, to read about the Scottish origins of ‘ghillie’. I’m so glad that God isn’t camouflaged to me, too. Most of the time all is good. It’s just that sometimes, for some friends, when they’re going through tough stuff, in some of the international atrocities, it’s difficult to understand with our tiny minds where God is and what He’s up to.

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